Hiking to the Evergreen beach is always a fun, easy walk in the woods. Can’t help but laugh at the kids that tag trees. You know you’re in the middle of somewhere special when anarchy signs adorn the cross sections of felled firs. Olympia in the springtime…

I found this note rolled up in the hollow of a tree. It reads, “If I never make it back to California, I want you to know I love you.” Secret wishes in trees are magical, and I carefully re-rolled it up and tucked it safely back, feeling slightly intrusive yet somehow included in the moment.

Upon returning home, I snuggled with my favorite cancer-kitty and day dreamed of California.

On April 14th, 2012 and into the early hours of the next morning,  I sat down with my composition notebook, a cup of tea and let my imagination run wild. Here then, is the beginning of my ultimate bucket list– those things I want to see/ make or do before I shuffle off this mortal coil. I have a long list and it will only continue growing. Things that are crossed out, I’ve already done. They were things I had always wanted to to before I had even attempted to compile such a list. Most of them have a related blog post or three, which I will link to later. I’m also permalinking this post in the sidebar of my blog for easy access. Here we go! Let’s see what the next 30+ years hold. Onward, friends!

Also, you’re all invited on any of these adventures. I don’t want to do everything alone! If you have a must-see or do item on your list that you think should be on my list, leave a comment below.

In no particular order:

• Travel across the country for a year in an old RV, making photographs, sleeping in Walmart Parking lots, and reading Great American Novels by candlelight.
• Learn to speak Spanish fluently and with confidence.
• Learn to identify wild edible plants and mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest.
• Cook an amazing four course vegetarian meal for a group of lovely friends.
• Participate in a national protest in the streets of Washington, D.C.
• Hike the Inca trail and spend a day at Machu Picchu contemplating mortality.
• Stare at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and try to feel God.
• Find a Guru.
• Attend Wrestlemania at least once.
• Swim in the sea surrounding Bora Bora while wearing a bikini (and look good in it).
• Swim in the salty Dead Sea and be healed.
• Watch Old Faithful erupt in Yellowstone.
• Have a soirée at Stonehenge…
• and a picnic on Easter Island.
• Stand in the Sedona vortexes and feel the good vibrations.
• Wander the streets of ancient Pompeii.
• Ride a camel in the Sahara Desert.
• Spend Christmas in the Hoh Rainforest.
• Take a solo camping trip to Crater Lake National Park and swim off the shores of Wizard Island.
• Read the Bible.
• Read Moby Dick.
• Read all the books I haven’t read that are sitting on my library shelves.
• Write a book other people will want to read.
• Create a renowned self-published serial photo zine.
• See Bruce Springsteen live in concert.
• See Morrissey live in concert.
• Have a Bill Murray “no one will ever believe you” moment.
• See wolves in the wild.
• See Grizzly Bears in the wild.
• Get a tattoo (and look good with it).
• Take an Eco tour of Chernobyl.
• Feel an earthquake.
• Chase a tornado.
• While in Russia, explore the Kremlin Palace in Moscow.
• Tour Gemini G.E.L. studios and Crown Point Press.
• Visit the temples and monasteries at Luang Prabang.
• Be humbled by Petra in Jordan…
• and be forgiven by Christ Redeemer in Brazil.
• Travel Alaska’s Inside Passage by Ferry.
• See glaciers in Alaska and feel small.
  
• Watch the Northern Lights from Denali National Park.
• See the bats fly out of the Carlsbad Caverns at dusk.
• Sled down the dunes at White Sands National Monument.
• Visit Shi Shi Beach and Point of Arches on  the westernmost tip of the continental United States.
• Visit the famous temple of Angkor Wat and read the Bhagavad Gita in the shade.
• Stand in front of the Taj Mahal and have my picture taken.
• While in India, visit Varanasi, boat on the Ganges, and see the Himalayas.
• Be awed by the Great Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.
• Walk inside a crop circle formed in fields along the English country side.
• Go to the annual Pendleton Roundup.
• Hike a portion of the Great Wall of China and pretend I can be seen from space.
• Explore the Everglade National Park.
• Spend a day at the Tate Modern, from open to close.
• Spend a night in Badlands National Park and go stargazing.
• Travel the Oregon Trail.
• Go camping in the Redwood National Park.
• Take a ferry down the Mississppi.
• Celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
• See the sun come up over Paris.
• Learn how to make salt prints.
• Lock eyes with the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.
• See and sketch the petroglyphs in Chaco Canyon.
• Raft down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.
• Explore Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Alberta, Canada and contemplate history and time.
• Visit, explore and hike in these National Parks: Yosemite, Banff, Mesa Verde, Glacier, Joshua Tree, Hawaii Volcanoes, and Yellowstone (again).
• Visit Antarctica before it melts away.
• Explore the Baja Penninsula.
• Travel the United States Gulf Coast from Corpus Christi, Texas to Mobile, Alabama.
• Kiss the Blarney Stone.

A couple of weekends ago, fellow adventurer Sarah Cass and I went thrift shopping in Aberdeen and then deciding to go beach combing at Westport. Aberdeen, home of both Kurt Cobain and one of my favorite professional wrestlers, Bryan Danielson (AKA Daniel Bryan), is a depressed yet beautiful old (as the west coast goes) logging town. The thrift shops are plenty but their contents are quite hit or miss. I found a few items that really broke my heart– a poorly made Mama’s ” Angels” mug and a plethora of abandoned kitty pictures being sold for their frames. I can’t help but imagine the tragic circumstances that lead to the arrival of those personal, once treasured items onto the shelves of dumpy Salvation Army’s and Thrift Villages. Perhaps I am overly sentimental, but I would hope that if some tragedy befalls me, my family, friends or at the very least, the caretakers of my paltry estate, would have the decency to empty any picture frames of personal photos before schlepping them off to Goodwill. (However, please leave all art framed as is for future ironic student art intervention assignments!)

We then made our way to the beach. The surf was rough, the wind was frigid but the sun was shining and that is reason enough to stroll happily along any Washington Beach in the springtime.

Sarah and I found dozens and dozens of sand dollars along the high tide line. If you’d like your own personal piece of the Pacific, send me your address and I’ll send you your very own, hand-picked sand dollar!

Condos on the beach. Ewww… but, also eerily beautiful against the subdued landscape.

On our way home, we stopped at one more second hand store and found this little guy wandering around the neighboring (no pun intended) lot. It was an odd, lonely spot to keep a pony, and my girlhood heart ached for him as I imagined trying to fit him inside my Hyundai to bring home.

On our final day of travel, we drove through Utah, Idaho and Oregon. We left Wyoming early in the morning and by 9am, we entered Utah just in time to see the gorgeous morning sun break across the beautiful red rock-scape lining the highway. It was breathtaking.

As we continued climbing in altitude, we were caught up in a terrible storm outside of Salt Lake City. The wind was absolutely unreal, “canyon breezes” as we learned they’re called, and the rain was relentless. Apparently, that’s normal this time of year in that area?

Once into Oregon, we were in the home stretch. Even though it would be late when we arrived in Portland, our final destination.

The Bonneville Dam at sunset on the Columbia. Our journey ended approximately an hour later in St. Johns in Portland. We traveled over three thousand miles in the span of four days. Yowza. Although there are other places I would gladly live in the US, my heart decidedly belongs to the Pacific Northwest.

The next two days kinda blurred together. We drove through St. Louis during beautiful morning light. The drive north along the Missouri River was tedious and full of traffic, weaving into Kansas and Iowa before veering into Nebraska. We made it to the middle of Nebraska the second night and almost out of Wyoming the third day. The landscape was flat– full of farmland and fields of cattle for as far as the eye could see.

Can you believe I’m 33 and this was the first time I’ve stepped foot in a Waffle House? The waffles aren’t bad, actually. I felt greasy for the rest of the day though.

Yes, we listened to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska while traveling through the state.

The Abraham Lincoln head in Laramie, WY! I’m glad I got a good shot. Seriously, I just want to buy an old RV and travel to roadside attractions for a year. Following my Bliss in 2013?

More Wyoming. We had some car trouble in Wyoming and ended up spending over four hours at a Sears in some mall getting some temperature gauges fixed in the truck.

I love the colors out west; they are the colors of freedom and vast, open spaces.

A few weeks ago during spring break, I flew to Durham, North Carolina to help an old college friend move across country. Late February, he had accepted a job offer in Salem, Oregon. When he shared his good news, I immediately volunteered to drive across the lower 48 to aide in the relocation process. I love driving and this seemed like a great opportunity to sit in the passenger seat and take photographs. It was the fifth time I’ve embarked on such an adventure.

DAY ONE:

The first day, we drove through North Carolina, beautiful Virginia (Oh, Richmond! How I miss you!), West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois during the first day on the road. We even stopped at my parent’s house in Louisville for dinner. Both of my Grandmothers and my aunt were also coincidentally visiting at the same time!

We celebrated my Grandmother Baumann’s birthday with a Safeway cake and cheap wine. Grandma Betty sits on the right!

The family waves goodbye!

We stop in Illinois for the night. Six states in one day– not too bad.

March was decidedly a lion.

Chirpy, one of my favorite chickens, died suddenly in her nest box. I buried her in the backyard, blubbering more because of the suddenness of her death than out of sadness of her passing. She lived a life 99.999% better than the majority of the world’s domestic poultry.

The winter quarter was little less than a total disaster. Broken equipment, stressed students and my preoccupied mind leads to less than desirable studio circumstances.

And then the worst of it: Montana, my 12 year old cat, was diagnosed with a cancerous mass in his stomach. He stopped eating sometime during the middle of February. His once (albeit overweight) 16 pound frame was down to, and remains at, 12.5 pounds. He quickly became a lethargic, constantly cold, pitiful pile of skin and bones. Finally, after numerous trips to the vet, several blood tests and a X-ray, he was given antibiotics to combat elevated white blood cells (which, of course, only showed on his second round of blood work). He was also given kitty anti-depressants to stimulate his appetite. As his demeanor slowly returned to normal after two weeks on antibiotics, his X-ray came back showing an ominous mass in his stomach, which was identified by two vets and one radiologist. I don’t know yet if this mass is malignant or benign. I’m taking him back for an ultrasound next week to get a better idea of where the mass is actually located in his stomach and have a consultation concerning treatment options, if that is indeed something I even want to pursue. Montana has been my constant companion since the summer of 2000… and there is nothing he hates more in this world than being handled by veterinarians.

It’s weird to think that when I adopted this tabby kitten from the SPCA in Buffalo, NY during the summer before my senior year in college, the majority of my current students were between the ages of 8 and 10 years old.

I can only hope that any decisions I am forced to make concerning his future will be based on the quality of his life and not the selfishness of my own desires. Until then, we’ve got the summer.